Tyndale: Stupid parents have raised a generation of superbrats

STUPID parents have raised a generation of superbrats – and they’ve only got themselves to blame.

STUPID parents have raised a generation of superbrats – and they’ve only got themselves to blame.

Of course, anyone with a modest number of brain cells has known this for some time. But the pathetic way in which children are indulged with branded clothes and gadgets has been brought home in a report by UNICEF.

The United Nations children’s charity has been researching the way parents react with their offspring in several European countries. The conclusions are as stark as they are unsurprising: British kids are hooked on “compulsive consumerism”.

They simply can’t get enough Gameboys, PlayStations, flash clothes and gaudy trainers to satisfy their cravings.

Their parents, like playground drug pushers, are happy to feed the addiction – as long as they get a quiet life.

Remember the riots that rocked the country this summer, when selfish scumbags and their youth group leaders tried to politically justify what was little more than wholesale looting?

UNICEF UK is in no doubt that the younger generation’s obsession with our tacky consumer culture was one of the root causes for the disturbances – and it’s right.

The hooded troublemakers, by and large, did not target symbols of authority and power in a politically motivated protest. Local council buildings, courts and royal palaces were not besieged.

Instead the “we’ve got to have it all” generation looted designer clothes and watch boutiques, cleared out shops selling sports leisurewear and helped themselves to displays of the latest plasma tellies and MP3 players.

Underclass

This was not a rebellion by a disenfranchised underclass. It was a carnival of greed.

UNICEF’s study, jointly funded by the Department for Education, quizzed hundreds of kids in Britain, Spain and Sweden and came to an overwhelming conclusion: our children have been spoilt rotten and society is paying the price.

Youngsters were asked to define their idea of happiness and success. In Spain and Sweden, kids valued the time they spent with their parents, whether that be sharing meals, playing, going on trips together or simply talking.

British kids gauged their happiness by the number of electronic gadgets their folks had bought them.

Boys no longer make Spitfire aircraft out of modelling kits and girls don’t have dolls’ houses – although, of course, if they did their parents would probably be arrested for encouraging political incorrect activities.

Children now entertain themselves in expensive “media bedsits” with their own TVs, mobile phones and computers on which they engage in all manner of nefarious activity thanks to the internet.

According to UNICEF: “Parents in the UK almost seemed to be locked into a system of consumption which they knew was pointless but they found hard to resist.”

Hence the dilemma faced by one doting mum. She wasn’t concerned that she could not find enough time to play with her son, she agonised because she didn’t have the cash for a Nintendo DS game.

She was worried her child might be bullied at school if he didn’t have the gadget. Her son was three years old.

There’s no doubt many idiot parents are compelled to shower their kids in gifts out of a sense of guilt. But this stems from one of the great myths of the modern age, and that is that parents “have no time” to spend with their children.

The lie is perpetuated by unions, employee organisations, the nutters of Dragons Den, politicians and workers themselves. They claim people work far harder than previous generations and there “aren’t enough hours in the day.”

The reality is that there were never enough hours in the day. Do these feckless adults really think life is tougher now than it was in the Blitz, when bombs rained down and volunteers helped to collect the body parts of their neighbours?

Starting a family and having children entails great responsibilities. One of them is that you find the time to engage with your kids and teach them right from wrong. Widgets won’t do.